Bonjour

Welcome to Paris.

SFII Sagat stage

Femi on the hunt.

Crepes

We stayed up until around 7am every day playing Street Fighter IV & Pro Evo, so people closed their eyes every chance they got.

Lawrence

Homeless guy.

Tournament time

Bushido Impact 9. We came to Paris mainly to enter the Street Fighter IV tournament. Most of us made it out of our groups into the main tournament bracket.

Here are some of my group fights. I play Zangief.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Zero2000 (Wes, right) vs Yamazaki (Olivier). Yamazaki is is the best Ryu in France.

Yamazaki vs Dawgtanian. Dawgtanian is very popular in France, known from his online matches. There was always a crowd when he was playing.

Jesus is a pad player

The King Sagat.

Logan Sama. Logan and I stayed up all night Friday and played 200-300 games vs each other, Zangief vs Akuma. That is my tournament stick next to him, with a custom Zangief faceplate.

Close up of my stick. My gamer handle is ‘WorstGiefEVER’. I play SFIV on PC, my gamertag there is JBARDOLPH if anyone wants to add me. I am improving all the time, so one day I will probably change from ‘WorstGiefEVER’ to ‘Maybe not the Worst Gief EVER, but still pretty bad’.

Zero2000 (Wes) in battle.

Dawgtanian vs StarNab. StarNab is an awesome Fei Long player. He is SG rank on XBOX (top league). This match had HUGE hype, and Femi got it on camcorder and commentated. Probably the most hype match of the day. Video below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bushido Impact 9 was a fantastic event. They are planning to run an event every month; it is a one-day event, so from the UK you could get the Eurostar there and back on the same day for £50. I will certainly be doing this again. The people we met were great and very hospitable (thank you Bushido), and we all look forward to seeing them again.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Geeky stuff: Leica M6, Leica 35mm 1.4 Summilux, Kodak Tri-X, Ilford Delta 400

Some of the shots here suffer from pixelation – I guess I need to scan at a higher resolution.

Savoy theatre rear stage door (below)

And we finish with the Arab. I miss the Arab. Haven’t seen her for months.

I was recently in France. This is my newphew Joseph, to the left my Brother Luc, to the right his lovely partner Josephine.

This is my niece Barbara

This is my nephew Scott, and brother Luc.

Back in London. Going to have a picnic.

Our picnic. Apple juice, jams and pate from Borough Market. Tanya made a tasty rocket salad with feta cheese; she also brought some roulé cheese, salmon and a kitchen knife. We bought some awesome olive bread from Richmond. I didn’t realise we needed a can opener for the pate. Oh well.

She should have some pics up on her blog soon, including the caterpillar incident. She’s a wuss.

Got the train from Vienna to Bratislava.

Tanya headed straight for the sex shop. This photo is crap.

I had a latte with Eva. They don’t give you small portions of water with coffee in London.

Exposed for Eva’s arm. Oops.

Went to a farm in France. They had goats. Not sheep, goats. Bred for their wool. Goats, not sheep.

They have rocks of salt they can lick as and when necessary.

Maybe more goat pics later. These goats are cool. They can eat hay whenever they want but when the troughs are filled with sweetcorn it’s every goat for itself.

My Bessa R2M & 35/1.7 arrived yesterday. Tanya & I will do some awesome portraits with it tomorrow, then she will learn to develop! Let’s hope the XTOL I made works properly…